From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of In a Dark, Dark Wood, The Woman in Cabin 10, The Lying Game, and The Death of Mrs. Westaway comes Ruth Ware’s highly anticipated fifth novel.

When she stumbles across the ad, she’s looking for something else completely. But it seems like too good an opportunity to miss—a live-in nannying post, with a staggeringly generous salary. And when Rowan Caine arrives at Heatherbrae House, she is smitten—by the luxurious “smart” home fitted out with all modern conveniences, by the beautiful Scottish Highlands, and by this picture-perfect family.

What she doesn’t know is that she’s stepping into a nightmare—one that will end with a child dead and herself in prison awaiting trial for murder.

Writing to her lawyer from prison, she struggles to explain the unravelling events that led to her incarceration. It wasn’t just the constant surveillance from the cameras installed around the house, or the malfunctioning technology that woke the household with booming music, or turned the lights off at the worst possible time. It wasn’t just the girls, who turned out to be a far cry from the immaculately behaved model children she met at her interview. It wasn’t even the way she was left alone for weeks at a time, with no adults around apart from the enigmatic handyman, Jack Grant.

It was everything.

She knows she’s made mistakes. She admits that she lied to obtain the post, and that her behavior toward the children wasn’t always ideal. She’s not innocent, by any means. But, she maintains, she’s not guilty—at least not of murder. Which means someone else is.

Full of spellbinding menace and told in Ruth Ware’s signature suspenseful style, The Turn of the Key is an unputdownable thriller from the Agatha Christie of our time.

Book Type:

Thriller

Review: The Turn of the Key

A nanny’s post turns into a nightmare in Ruth Ware’s THE TURN OF THE KEY.

Rowan Caine can hardly believe the live-in nannying post she stumbles across. Touting an amazing salary and working in a posh home outfitted with the latest tech—it’s an opportunity she must seize. Thankfully, she gets the job at this picturesque home, working for a seemingly perfect family.

Almost immediately however, there’s an undercurrent that unnerves her. Unexplained sounds late at night. The children murmuring troubling things. Rumors that the house is haunted. And on top of all that, there’s a sense that someone is always watching with all the cameras throughout the home.

The ideal job quickly becomes a chilling nightmare and not long after she starts, a child dies, and Rowan ends up behind bars.

She writes to a lawyer from prison, pleading him to take her case, divulging everything that happened once she stepped into the home. Yes, everything isn’t what it seems and Rowan is culpable of much, she admits, but a killer is on the loose and she needs help.

Ware reimagines the classic ghost story, propelling it into the 21^st century with equally terrifying threads. A luxurious smart home becomes antagonistic, ratcheting tension as it intermingles with seething, secret spaces, overgrown poison gardens and haunting tales of murder.  Ware is so adept at crafting a menacing, gothic type of atmosphere, that there’s a perceptible thrum to the story that keeps you utterly absorbed. Admittedly, however, there are parts that feel slow with most of the action happening in the last 15 to 20% of the novel. I loved the ending though—it chilled me to the bone.

My favorite RW book remains THE DEATH OF MRS. WESTAWAY, yet nonetheless, it’s apparent that Ware is a master of her craft. There is many a twist, some more believable than others, but all that keep you indelibly enthralled.

This highly anticipated fifth novel is clever, creepy and worth the wait.

You Might Also Like: